After the H Book, Volume 1: Piano Book

This book answers a genuine pedagogical need: what happens after your student crosses the intermediate threshold and you want to deepen their musicianship without abandoning the Schaum framework they know? Schaum's instruction here assumes solid fundamentals and focuses on expanding expressive range and technical vocabulary. The Grade 6 material feels purposeful rather than arbitrary, building on rather than repeating what came before.

Opening this book feels like stepping into a slightly wider musical world. The pieces have more personality and independence between the hands than earlier Schaum volumes; the technical demands are real without feeling punitive. There's a sense of accomplishment in tackling fuller textures and longer musical phrases, with moments of genuine musicality breaking through.

This book is for intermediate pianists who have completed the H Book of the Schaum Piano Course and are ready to consolidate and extend their technical foundation. Students at this level benefit from material that feels fresh and less remedial than repetitive review, while still supporting continued skill development in a structured way.

• Connect the pieces you assign to Schaum's underlying technical goals. Each exercise-in-disguise addresses something specific (hand independence, wider intervals, more complex rhythms), so spend rehearsal time identifying what skill each piece demands.
• Encourage students to listen for the musical shape before diving into fingering and pedal. Schaum's melodies are singable and designed to teach phrasing naturally, so singing or humming passages first often reveals the intended structure.
• Use the accompaniment figures as a practice tool. Many pieces contain repeated patterns in the left hand; isolating these and drilling them separately accelerates progress and frees the student to focus on melody line.
• Vary tempo exploration during practice. Take pieces slightly slower than indicated to control technical elements, then gradually bring them up to tempo. This mirrors Schaum's principle of building confidence before speed.

Assign pieces from this book as the core repertoire for students entering their 6th-7th year of study, especially if you want to honor their Schaum foundation while avoiding the plateau that sometimes follows intermediate method books. Works well paired with supplementary recital pieces, since Schaum's graded selections can fill lesson time while your student prepares something showier for performance.

• Reading and executing wider interval jumps in both clefs
• Hand independence with asymmetrical rhythmic patterns
• Musical phrasing and shaping melodic lines
• Control of dynamic contrast and pedal technique
• Left-hand accompaniment patterns including broken chords and block textures
• Sustained finger technique and legato touch